


Cure

by JenTheSweetie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 14:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10493304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: Sherlock sat up so quickly it was as if John had screamed in his ear rather than hiccuped gently from across the room.  “Intolerable!”“Talking about you, now, are we?” John said, going back to his paper.  “Don’t worry, as a doctor, I can confirm for you that hiccups are not fatal, especially for the sufferer’s flatmate.”John gets the hiccups.  Sherlock has a few ideas about how to cure them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to Snapjack, for the encouragement, quick beta reads, and cheerleading!

“What’s that noise?”

John glanced up from the paper.  “Pardon?”

“That horrible sound,” Sherlock said.  

“There’s no - ”

“Shut up and listen.”

“Sherlock, the telly’s off, Rosie’s at nursery, there’s no - _hic_  - sound!”

“It’s _you_ ,” Sherlock said, sounding betrayed.  “You’ve got the hiccups!”

“Oh,” John said.  “I suppose I do.  I didn’t actually - _hic_  - notice.”

“It’s atrocious,” Sherlock said.  “Make it stop.”

“It doesn’t work that way.  Have you deleted hiccups?”

“Of course not,” Sherlock said.  “Just hold your breath.  That always works for me.”

“Sherlock - ”

“John, it’s _distracting_.”

“You’re - _hic_  - lying on the sofa with your eyes closed!”

“No, I’m thinking about the implications of thermodynamic equilibrium on the preservation of decomposing flesh, or at least I _was_  until you started making that _ghastly_  sound - ”

“Oh my god, fine,” John said.  “I’ll hold my breath until they go away, all right?  You absolute - _fine_  - ”  

And he took a very large breath and held it.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said primly, flopping back onto the sofa and shutting his eyes once more. 

John glared at him and counted, slowly, all the way to 30 before he exhaled extravagantly.

“There,” he said.  “Are you quite happy with yourself?  They’re gone, you obnoxious - _hic_  - oh, bollocks.”

Sherlock sat up so quickly it was as if John had screamed in his ear rather than hiccuped gently from across the room.  “Intolerable!”  
  
“Talking about you, now, are we?” John said, going back to his paper.  “Don’t worry, as a doctor, I can confirm for you that hiccups are not fatal, especially for the sufferer’s flatmate.”

Sherlock didn’t reply; apparently it was to be _that_  sort of strop.  Fine by John.  They sat in silence, interrupted only by the occasional _hic_ , John reading his paper and Sherlock doing whatever it was he did inside his own head.  After a while, John noticed that he was clacking away on his laptop.  Probably typing up something to do with thermodynamic whatever-it-was on _The Science of Deduction_  that no one would read, or perhaps researching toddler-proofing tips on blogs for mums, you never could tell with Sherlock these days - 

“Eat this.”

John looked up.  Sherlock was looming over him and holding a spoonful of white powder.

“Nope,” John said automatically.  “Learned my lessons on eating things you offer years ago, we’ve talked about this.”

“It’s sugar,” Sherlock said.  

“I didn’t know you knew where we - _hic_  - kept the sugar,” John said.  “I usually take it with at least a _spot_  of tea, but - ”

“It’s to get rid of the hiccups,” Sherlock said, thrusting it forward.  

John rolled his eyes.  “You’re mad, you know that?”

“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” Sherlock said.  

John took the spoon, sighed internally, and swallowed the sugar all at once.  

“There,” he said around a mouthful of too-sweet grains.  “Happy?”

“I’ll reserve judgment until we’ve established that the problem has been dealt with,” Sherlock said, watching John with narrowed eyes.

John smacked his lips.  “Nothing like a heaping spoonful of sugar to put you off biscuits for the evening, a new diet regimen for Mycroft perhaps - _hic_.  Apparently not.”

Sherlock spun away, and John allowed himself to imagine for one blissful moment that he was going to be left alone before the other man returned with a glass of water covered in a paper towel.

“Drink.”

“This one’s nonsense,” John said, but accepted the water.  Drinking it through the paper towel was an effort, to be sure, and as he finished the glass he paused, thinking perhaps that would be that, until - 

_Hic_.

Sherlock groaned dramatically.  “This is unbearable.”

“What an easy life you must have led, for this to be such a trial,” John said.  “If it’s really bothering you I can go down to Mrs Hudson’s, leave you in peace and - ”

“ _No,_ ” Sherlock asid.  “I’ll fix them.  Stick out your tongue.”

John blinked.  “Pardon me?”

“Just do it.”

John was torn between curiosity and hesitance to present any particularly vulnerable part of his body for Sherlock’s inspection.  “Er - ”

“John!”

John rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.  “Aw wight then, wot naw?”

Sherlock peered at his protruding tongue for a moment, and then - to John’s utter astonishment - pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and PULLED.

“Argh!” John choked.  He knocked Sherlock’s arm away and brought his poor tongue back into the safety of his mouth.  “What the hell was that?”

“The internet said it might work,” Sherlock said primly.

“Might - _hic_  - work to get you punched in the face, more like,” John grumbled.

Sherlock delicately wiped his fingers on his dressing gown and disappeared into the kitchen again.  John could hear him banging open cupboards and rifling through the fridge.

“So,” John said, “are you _\- hic_  - going to poison me next?”

“Poison leaves too much evidence,” Sherlock said.  “If I ever decided to kill you I could cover it up so well they’d never even know you were gone.”

“Very comforting, as always,” John said.

Sherlock shoved a glass of something a weak pale green color under his nose.

“Sherlock,” John said.  “That’s pickle juice.”

“Well spotted.”

“Am I supposed to drink it?””

“Actually I was thinking you ought to bathe in it,” Sherlock said.  “Of course you’re supposed to drink it.”

“Nope,” John said.  “That’s it.  That’s apparently where I draw my - _hic_  - line.  I’ll shoot someone for you, not a problem, but a glass of pickle juice?  That’s too far.  Not happening.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Sherlock said.

“You go on and have the first taste, then,” John said.

“You’re being very difficult.”

“Oh hello, pot, this is - _hic_  - kettle.  Hiccups happen sometimes, Sherlock, it’s completely - _hic_  - natural and I’m trying to read the paper, so I’ll thank you to leave me to my spasming diaphragm in peace.”

Sherlock sighed theatrically.  “Very well.  I’ll just go to my bedroom and bury my head under a pillow until I can’t hear you.”

“I like that idea,” John said as Sherlock stomped away.  “It has the added benefit of - _hic_  - you potentially suffocating, so yeah, I’m all for it.”

John enjoyed three full minutes of respite before Sherlock’s bedroom door banged open and he shouted from the top of the stairs, “Mrs Hudson!  Come at once!  It’s urgent!”

“Sherlock, honestly,” John complained.

“What is it, dear?” Mrs Hudson said, hurrying up the stairs.  “If this is about those old stockings of mine you borrowed, I told you, there’s nothing wrong with - ”

“Those are for an _experiment_ ,” Sherlock said.  “And no, it’s not about that.  How do you cure hiccups?”

“How do I what?” Mrs Hudson said.  

“According to the internet there are many old wives’ tales about curing hiccups, some of which actually work,” Sherlock said.  “You’re an old wife, so.  Out with it.”

“Sherlock,” John said.

“Oh, it’s hardly the worst thing he’s called me,” Mrs Hudson said, rolling her eyes.  “Have you got the hiccups?”

“No, John has,” Sherlock said.  “And they’re torturing me.”

“And in return, he’s - _hic_  - torturing _me_ ,” John contributed.

“Nothing new there,” Mrs Hudson said.  “Well, when I was a girl, my mother always said you could scare the hiccups out of someone.”

“ _Scare_  them?” Sherlock said, intrigued.

“You know, give them a fright,” Mrs Hudson said.  “Jump out from behind a door or something.”

“I’m rather difficult to frighten, I’m afraid,” John said.  “Between the army and running around with a - _hic_  - madman, my startle response is a bit desensitized.”

“Thank you, Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock said.  “That will be all.”

“Best of luck, boys,” Mrs Hudson said.  “Oh, and I’ve got a lasagna for tonight if you want any!”

“That won’t be necessary, John’s already planning to order Thai,” Sherlock said.

“How did you know I - no, nevermind, that’s not important, I know you’re trying to figure out how to startle me,” John said as Mrs Hudson fled.  “I can see it on your face, you maniac, and it’s - _hic_  - not going to work, considering I know it’s going to happen.  Waste of time.”

“We’ll see,” Sherlock said darkly.

John rolled his eyes.  The sugar had made him thirsty, he rather fancied a -

“Tea for me as well,” Sherlock said, obnoxiously.  John narrowed his eyes and went to turn on the kettle, wary of the scheming going on in Sherlock’s head.  Sherlock’s schemes were always something to behold, to be sure, though John liked them rather less when they were directed at _him_  - 

“John,” said a voice directly behind his right ear.

“What,” John said.  Sherlock had approached him as silently as a bloody mountain lion.  “Christ, how do you - _hic_  - walk so quietly?”

“Practice,” Sherlock said.  “You didn’t even flinch.”

“I told you I wouldn’t,” John said.  “You’d have to do something really unexpected to startle me at this point, you realize.”

“Would I,” Sherlock said.

“Yes, you - _hic_  - would,” John said.

“Like kiss you?” Sherlock said.

“That would probably do it, yes,” John said.

And then Sherlock kissed him.

In retrospect, John thought, he had been a bit stupid not to see _that_  one coming.

John blinked as Sherlock pulled back.  “Er.”

“Did it work?” Sherlock said, peering at him curiously but also, John noticed, looking a bit flushed.

John paused, trying to think about how long it had been since he’d hiccuped so as to avoid thinking about how Sherlock was still standing very, very close.  “I think so,” John said.

“Marvelous,” Sherlock said, and kissed him again.

-

Some time later, Sherlock rolled away and said, “That was another way to do get rid of them, you know.”

John was not listening particularly closely; he was a bit busy catching his breath.  “To get rid of what?”

“ _Hiccups_ ,” Sherlock said, exasperated, as if they’d just been talking about hiccups rather than doing quite a few non-hiccup-related things over the past hour.  “Orgasm has been a documented cure for intractable hiccups.”

John considered this for a moment before his eyes widened.  “Sherlock.  You didn’t - ”

“No, John, I did not have sex with you just to cure your hiccups,” Sherlock said.  “That would be going too far even for me and at any rate we’d already cured them with the kiss.”

“Right,” John said.  “And the kiss was - ”

“Dual purpose,” Sherlock said.  “Clearly.”

“Clearly,” John repeated faintly.  “Well.  I suppose if I ever get them again we’ll have something else to try.”

“You needn’t contract the hiccups in order to entice me to have sex with you.”

“Well, that’s comforting.”

There was a long, pleasant pause.

And then - 

“ _Hic_.”

There was a long, somewhat less pleasant pause.

“Pickle juice,” Sherlock said, rolling out of bed and grabbing his dressing gown.

“I was thinking we might try the kissing again, actually,” John said.  “Sherlock.  Sherlock!”


End file.
